02/13/22 - Blessed

Blessed (Luke 6:17-26)
Rev. Peter Heckert
02/13/22

+ Grace to you, and peace, from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. + Amen.

The text for our meditation for this sixth Sunday of Epiphany comes from our Gospel text, especially where Luke records Jesus’s words to His disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of
God ….” Here ends our text; my dear Christian friends …

What does it mean to be “blessed”? It’s a word that is sort of thrown around in Christian circles, sometimes flippantly. I’ve even been known to end emails and other correspondence with the phrase, “Have a blessed day,” sort of as the Christianized version of “Have a nice day.” It’s not that there’s anything wrong with doing this, but do we really know what it means to be blessed? Usually, when we say that we’re “blessed,” that’s an indication that things are going well in life. No major issues, marriage is getting stronger, kids are doing well in school, got a promotion at work! Life is good overall! I’m blessed.

We think of being blessed as being the recipients of good things, of “blessings.” Good things that come our way in life. Certainly, that’s true; those situations are blessings, gifts from the hand of our beloved heavenly Father … but what about when your marriage is going through a rough spot? Your eldest just failed a class and has to retake it in summer school? Your company is downsizing and your position may be eliminated? Are you still blessed by your heavenly Father, even when it seems like the world around you is falling apart? 

In our text, from Luke’s gospel account, Jesus has just selected His twelve specific disciples from among many. Afterwards, Luke tells us that “He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.” These were folks feeling the effects of living in a broken world, a world ravaged by sin. People who felt they were under the thumb of adversity and trial and hardship. They came to Jesus, looking for reprieve, and He met their needs. “And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.”

It is in this context that Jesus begins to speak, as He has done elsewhere, and He begins with the word, Makarioi, “blesséd.” “Blessed are you,” He starts … and then inverts the expectation … “who are poor … Blessed are you who are hungry now ... Blessed are you who weep now … Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy ….”

Do those sound like blessings? Favorable things, good things befalling you? Does that sound like Dean Martin, “If this is just the beginnin’, my life is gonna be beee-eau-tiful”? Not exactly. Sounds rather … the opposite of being blessed. If one is poor or hungry or sorrowful or hated, that sounds more like the hand of the Lord being heavy upon and against one, certainly not being under God’s favor and protection.

No, riches, fullness, laughter, a fine reputation – those are the blessings we want, right? We don’t want … to be in want. We don’t desire sorrows and tears. We want the good stuff in life! We want posh luxury, comforts beyond imagining. Sumptuous foods beyond compare and in corresponding proportion! Good beer, good times, good friends – these are the things we want! But as He is wont to do, Jesus calls into question this mentality, as well, as He continues with something Matthew doesn’t include after his account of Jesus’s Beatitudes: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

Don’t hear Jesus saying that laughter or riches or satiation are inherently evil and to be avoided. Don’t hear Him saying that poverty and hunger and sorrows are inherently virtuous and to be strove after. Both slap at the hand of our heavenly Father, whose delight it is to give His children good things. But that’s beside the point that Jesus is making here. This is less about the haves and have-nots … and more about your focus. Is it temporal … or is it eternal?

Paul makes the point in our epistle lesson from 1 Corinthians about what really matters. He tells those early Christians, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. … BUT,” he continues, “in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”

It’s not an understatement to say that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the most important event to have ever happened! It changes literally everything, including our focus. No longer do those who belong to Christ have to strive for happiness now, in this life, as if it’s the only time that we have. “YOLO,” “you only live once,” is a patently false claim in the life of a believer. 

A believer knows that Christ’s death on the cross to atone for his sins, as well as His subsequent bodily, actual resurrection from the dead bequeaths to him a new life, an eternal life. That remains the reality, irrespective of whether life’s circumstances find him in plenty or in want. If the believer weeps in sorrow here, he has the promise that God will wipe away every tear from his eyes in the Day of our Lord Jesus. If he has much laughter, he thanks God for such a gift and knows that his laughter will be exponentially increased in the presence of his King. Likewise, those who only chase after such temporal blessings, whether they attain them or not, will receive nothing of the sort in the world to come – not because they had or had not, but because their trust was not in the One who gives the greatest blessing in creation: the promise and seal of forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.

I don’t know where you’re at in life. I don’t know if you fall into the category of impoverished, hungry, and downcast, or if you are enjoying stability, fullness, and happiness. What I do know is that, regardless of life’s circumstances, you are blessed. Not because of what you have or how you feel. If you trust that Christ Jesus died for the full atonement of all your sins, that He rose from the dead to justify you before the Father, that He is coming back soon and very soon to redeem you from this vale of tears and take you to be with Him forever, then come good times or bad in this life, you are very blessed indeed!

+ In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. + Amen.